This Day In Baseball
History: September 18, 1996
It was on this date in 1996 that
Boston Red Sox starting pitcher, Roger Clemens, tied his own Major League
record when he struck out 20 batters in one game. The 20 Ks came against the
Detroit Tigers in a 4-0 shutout for the Red Sox at Tiger Stadium. Clemens’ line
for the night was nine innings pitched, no runs, five hits, and no walks to go
along with the 20 strike outs.
The first time Clemens had
accomplished the feat was more than ten years earlier on April 29, 1986, when he
fanned 20 Seattle Mariners at Fenway Park in Boston.
The victory against Detroit
would be the final win for Clemens as a member of the Boston Red Sox. He would
pitch two more games in 1996, getting a no-decision and a loss. He would sign
as a free agent with the Toronto Blue Jays prior to the 1997 season. After
spending two years with Toronto, he would pitch for the New York Yankees for
the rest of his career—except for three years with the Houston Astros—before
retiring at the end of the 2007 season at the age of 45.
No one has ever broken Rocket
Roger’s record for single-game strikeouts, although two pitchers have tied it.
The first was Kerry Wood of the Chicago Cubs, when he struck out 20 Houston
Astros at Wrigley Field on May 6, 1998. The second was Max Scherzer of the
Washington Nationals when he K’d 20 Detroit Tigers at Nationals Park on May 11
of this year.
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